Former Tall Blacks guard Hayden Allen and team-mates Tom Abercrombie and Ethan Rusbatch helped to open Fairfield School’s new multisport facility yesterday.
He had worked with Auckland-based company Court Kings to lay a brand-new turf over the summer holidays.
He said it was a full-circle moment for him because his uncle had put the hoops up at the school about 30 years ago.
Playing at the school as a young boy had inspired him to continue playing basketball and he was hoping to do the same for the next generation.
‘‘Our biggest message [to the children] is to get off devices and just get outside and play.’’
He encouraged the pupils to dream big and aspire to play professional basketball like himself.
Fairfield was among five schools to be chosen across the country to have a court installed.
He said the school had changed a lot since he had gone there and the basketball programme had grown tenfold because of the enthusiasm of office manager Sue Grave and principal Greg Hurley.
Mr Hurley said the school had 150 pupils in 21 teams playing basketball this year.
The sport had taken off in the school because of Ms Grave’s passion for the sport and that was why she cut the ribbon to open the facility yesterday.
‘‘She's been the drive behind the growth and she's also been the drive behind making sure the project gets done,’’ Mr Hurley said.
Pupils Masey Stafford, 8, and Kobe Arthur, 11, loved their new court and hoped to one day play for the Southern Hoiho and Otago Nuggets, respectively.
Basketball New Zealand national facilities and special projects lead Daniel Dawick said the one-off Courts in Schools project had sprung from the Hoops in Schools initiative, which began in 2018.
He said one of the biggest barriers in basketball was the lack of suitable courts around the country and the programme aimed to solve that issue.
‘‘The only thing we can do as a national body to get more tamariki and rangatahi playing sport is increase access to basketball courts.’’
The organisation had also secured sponsorship from the Chemist Warehouse to install hoops at Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Otepoti.
